After School Specials (1974-76)

After School Specials (1974 – 76) (BCI Eclipse)
The 18th Emergency (1974) DIR: Jack Regas. SCR: Bob Rodgers, based on the novel by Betsy Byars. CAST: Christian Juttner, Lance Kerwin.
Sara’s Summer of the Swans (1974) DIR: James B. Clark. SCR: Bob Rodgers, based on the novel by Betsy Byars. CAST: Heather Totten, Christopher Knight, Priscilla Morrill, Eve Plumb.
The Skating Rink (1975) DIR: Larry Elikann. SCR: Bob Rodgers, based on the novel by Mildred Lee. CAST: Stewart Petersen, Devon Ericson, Rance Howard, Cindy Eilbacher, Jerry Dexter, Sparky Marcus.
Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate (1976) DIR: DIR: Larry Elikann. SCR: Bob Rodgers, based on the novel by Ellen Conford. CAST: Susan Lawrence, Meegan King, Barbara Timko.

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Proof positive that a company will re-issue anything that can be profited from people’s nostalgia, comes this first collection of those little movies produced by Martin Tahse, which ABC would show on weekdays in late afternoons, aimed at adolescents. I was one of the latchkey kids in their target audience, and watched these often, even though I cannot recall more than one or two with great clarity. These specials (four 45-minute featurettes on two DVDs) hold up surprisingly well, once viewed through adult eyes. Even though they were made for a less demanding audience, they remain thoughtful, earnest and rather complex stories that grown-up boomers and Gen-Xers could still appreciate today.

The first, 18th Emergency, shows a young man named Mouse (Christian Juttner) who is always on the run from school bully Hammerman, because he actually compared the big lug to cavemen! This special actually fits well with the 70’s “loser film” cycle, where things don’t necessarily end on a happy note, but the lead hero is somewhat wiser from the experience. True to form, the bully does track Mouse down and pummels him. At that point, through his own pain, does Mouse realize the pain he had given the bully. This amusing and thoughtful film (made when every adolescent boy had those long bowl-shaped haircuts) features some interesting supporting characters, like a blind man that Mouse “walks” occasionally, and even when we do see Hammerman up close, he doesn’t appear like such a menace after all.

Sara’s Summer of the Swans is an absorbing piece on teenaged malaise (reminiscent of the educational film Joy Ride). Heather Totten (a familiar teenage actress) is Sara, a snippy girl with braces (what other teenage girl uses the word “deplorable” in her vocabulary?), who has to spend the summer looking after her little brother Charlie. Meanwhile her older sister gets to have all kinds of fun, like riding around on the Moped with her boyfriend! Charlie gets up in the middle of the night to go to the forest, presumably to see the swans he noticed earlier, and gets lost. The next day, Sara gets some help from Joe (Chris Knight- Pete from The Brady Bunch!) to go look for the boy. Along the way, Sara learns a lot about herself- her “holier than thou” attitude towards everyone is just a thin veil to disguise her own self-loathing. Although perhaps the teenagers in this segment talk too much like adults, this is another winner.  

The Skating Rink features a stuttering teenager named Tuck (Stewart Peterson) who takes up figure skating in order to overcome his shyness. His father (Rance Howard- Ron and Clint’s dad) can’t understand this vocation, to him it doesn’t seem like “real work”. Meanwhile, Tuck’s two older brothers, yahoos in the extreme, call him a girl. But his time spent in the arena with Pete (Jerry Dexter) and his wife becomes more than just professional- they become surrogate relatives, as they give him the encouragement and understanding that he doesn’t get at home. Of all the four videos in here, this is by far the most touching- and I love how it ends on a quiet moment between Tuck and his father. This is a gentle reminder of how the 1970s were rife with quality on the big and small screen.

By far the most amusing segment is Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate. Skip (Meegan King) the school newspaper editor decides to run an advice column in order to get more readership, and then recruits earnest young reporter Carrie (Susan Lawrence) as “Lovey Hart.” Although the Lovey Hart column was originally designed as a publicity stunt and just to have some fun, Carrie soon finds that she can’t live up to the responsibility of the guise, especially when writers ask for serious answers to serious problems. Her inconsiderate advice to an overweight girl (“go on a crash diet”) leads to great consequences. Then, Lovey becomes the scourge of the high school… if only people knew who she was. Carrie’s father even wants to know who this Lovey is! Meanwhile, she is blackmailed by her little brother, who is hip to her secret identity! Then the fun really begins.  This enjoyable life lesson about responsibility is, like the others, quite thoughtfully written.

Because these specials were shot on tape, the transfer to DVD does appear to be soft, but this is a minor quibble. The DVD case for this set is designed like one of those old Trapper binders, with the Velcro flap that you tear away to get at your subjects underneath. The main menu is designed like locker or bathroom graffiti, and the disc also comes with stills (which are mainly screen grabs from the films you just saw). This set is a great blast from the past in form and content!

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #16. BCI Eclipse released several DVD sets of After School Specials, including 1976-77, 1978-79, 1979-80, Class Of ’81-82, Class Of ’82-86. After BCI went out of business, a lot of these sets could be found in clearance bins. Now, they fetch a lot more money than their very reasonable original price point. If ever you find any of these sets, they are well worth your time and money.